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U.K. Report Now Available on the Effect of Video Games on Children
U.K. Report Now Available on the Effect of Video Games on Children
Psychologist Tanya Byron has released her report on the risks posed by video games and the internet to children. Last year, U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown commissioned Byron to review the issue and present a report, promising that the government would act to implement her suggestions.
The report is a long read, only some of which pertains to video games, although Byron concludes that the risks posed by video games are similar to those posed to children by the internet. She doesn’t take sides on the question of whether video games incite children to violence, arguing that more research is necessary. Primarily, she emphasizes that the European and U.K. rating systems need to be revised to better convey rating information to parents, and suggests that those ratings need to be enforced by stores, with legal penalties for not doing so.
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Another politician on the wrong track.
Enforcing game ratings in stores won't do shit.
The right way would be getting the parents to spend more time with their children and having more interest in what they're spending their free time on.
I think, maybe this problem will resolve itself in time, as today's gamers will better supervise what their children will play.
It is true that "Games" are not the main reason for children developing bad, but it really does not help if 12 year old boys can buy 18+ games in every shop. I saw this happening just 2 days ago once again, but decided not to say anything, because no one would have cared anyway...
And mind your language please. There could be children here ;)
I do think that several of Byron's "solutions" are problematic. But she does, at least, point out in the report that a major issue is the generational gap between parents and children, pointing out that many parents fundamentally don't understand games. So I think she'd agree with you about parents needing to spend more time with their children.
One should not underestimate how badly educated many parents are when it comes to computer games: Some do not know, some do not care about age ratings. In this respect, actually enforcing the age verification seems to be a good idea.
I agree, ratings should be enforced. The problem remaining, even with enforced ratings, is the ignorance of some parents. If they buy the game for their 12 year old son, who can stop them? We need to educate parents and children, make them competent users of this new medium. At the moment the parents have no competence and the children only got what they gathered by trying things out. That just isn't sufficient.
I've seen many times indifferent moms or grannys who buy violent games for their children.
I think the games should be grouped by age rating and the rating itself should be larger and better visible on the cover.
Enforcing these ratings sounds like a good idea but I see several problems with that:
So when will there be a law preventing parents to not care about their children?